Candlelight
by Tobiume
Summary: Alayne receives a nighttime visitor.


Candlelight

* * *

The candles have burned down to mere stubs, but she does not blow them out, though the flames leap and flicker, casting strange shadows on the walls. Her eyes are on her hands as she sits, twining long strands of auburn hair, her Tully hair between her fingers. (But she is not a Tully, she is a Stone.)

Her mother used to brush her hair and braid it, singing softly as she gathered it in handfuls and made it shine. Now that is the job of her maids, but their quick, dutiful hands are nothing like her mother's. _I'm sorry I didn't listen to you. _The words stick to her throat like lumpy oat porridge. She wraps her hair around her fingers, imagining how the soft silken strands might feel to someone else, to a man.

"You look very like your mother," Lord Baelish told her once, his voice a sad, slippery caress. "But when you're a woman grown, your beauty will surpass hers." Is she a woman grown now? She's had her blood, and she's been married, although she's a maiden, Tyrion did not force her to lie with him, she remembers gratefully, shuddering as she thinks of his misshapen face and his hard member, jutting out oddly from all that twisted yellow hair. That night, though, was from another life. She is Alayne now.

And Lord Baelish (Petyr_,_ she reminds herself) has regular features, even if she cannot bring herself to like his face. He isn't ugly, although he's old, as old as her parents (were_), _and he looks at her as if she _is_ a woman grown. Sansa knows what it is that men do with women, now, and Petyr unsettles her, with his too-close hands, curling lips, and quick, smooth voice. But he is kind to her. He has shown her every courtesy, has even killed to protect her (like a knight, in a song. But Alayne has no time for songs). She does not doubt that he wants something in return for his kindness. If she has learned anything over the last year, it is that no one is kind, that everyone wants recompense. But it has been so long since anyone has been kind to her that she wonders if perhaps soon, she might not care what it is that he wants.

There are footsteps beyond her door, a much heavier tread than Sweetrobin's timid scamper, although it is near to the time when he tends to climb into her bed. She has taken to locking the door, though, and whoever is outside learns this when they try to turn the handle and find the door shut fast.

Silence, and then a knock. A candle sputters and dies. Her fingers curl into the blankets, and she thinks suddenly that she does not want to get out of bed and walk to the door, because the floor must be very cold. All she can think of is the stone beneath her feet, and she shivers.

"I saw a light under your door. Are you well?" The concern in Petyr's voice seems to slide right through the walls, curling thickly into her ears.

"Yes. I couldn't sleep," she calls back, not liking the quavering note in her voice.

"Would you like to talk? You have been through a great deal. It's no wonder the nights are hard to get through. You can confide in me, you know. I can be a good friend to you, my dear."

"The floor is very cold," she offers, not knowing what else to say.

"Well, let me build a fire for you. I expect you've never laid your own, but I have, although it's been some time." She hears movement and imagines him shifting, leaning against the wall, waiting for her to stop being a foolish child, climb from her bed, cross the room, open the door, and let him in. She doesn't want to stop being a child. Childhood still offers a last measure of safety.

"Are you coming, my dear? It is cold out here, too, you know." His words are jesting, but there is a harder note in his voice, one that she does not know how to resist.

The coverlet is suddenly very heavy across her legs, but she pushes it back with some effort. The stones are indeed cold under her feet, but her room is so small that she doesn't have much room for a proper rug. Her fingers are cold, so she wraps them in the ends of her sleeves. She opens the door and stands back, allowing Petyr to enter her bedchamber.

He smiles and waves her back to the bed. "Sit, sit."

She does, warily. "Why have you come? It's very late."

"I thought we could talk. Would you like a fire?" He busies himself by the hearth, and she wonders how he knows how to do such a mundane chore. Before long a fire is crackling, and the room is far more comfortable. However, now Petyr turns his attention to her once again.

"Your hair is very beautiful in the candlelight. Like your mother's," he says. His voice is gentle in his reminiscence, but there is something else in it that she can't quite place. She wonders when he looked upon her mother's hair so closely. Was it in a small chamber like this? She cannot picture her mother alone in a room with Petyr. Alone with Petyr as she is, now.

Petyr takes a step forward, and she casts her eyes down. She is not her mother, but it seems that he wants her to be. When she looks up at a rustle of movement, she finds him kneeling on the floor before her. The smile she gives him is not her own, but one she's seen throughout her life and practiced before the mirror, one she'll never see again.

"Cat," he hisses, a slow rush of breath, and then he presses his face to hers.

_Fin._


End file.
